


War

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, English History, F/M, Female Friendship, Gen, Romance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 19:32:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6870568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary attended a ladies' academy and Emma had the best governess in Alexandria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War

What a pretty picture they made, sitting on the veranda, a basket of bleached bandages between them; it looked as if it could be filled with white flowers from where he stood, but he saw the rhythmic movements of their hands, Emma’s a bit faster but Mary’s neater, more economical of motion. Each had a smaller rush basket beside her and the rolled bandages were tucked in tightly, Mary’s slightly fuller. It was easier to see against the dark blue of Mary’s wide skirt; Emma’s was a pale green sprigged muslin, as if a meadow spilled over her lap. He would have paused for just a moment to store away the image, the two dark heads bent, slender necks almost too delicate for the weight of the curls and braids. Always, he looked more closely upon Mary, how her hair gleamed copper and bronze in the slanting light, her face less classically beautiful than Emma’s but of far greater appeal to him, the way her pilgrim soul was naked in her eyes, her vulnerable smile. Emma had mastered the blandly insipid mask so valued in the South and he wondered who had seen her true face. Some Confederate soldier or even, possibly, the earnest chaplain who sought her like her shadow.

He lingered as he heard them speaking, Mary forthright but considering, Emma lilting and playful as he had never heard her.

“I favor Lancaster, they had the rule of law standing to their side, I think. There was a rightful heir and York sought to capitalize on the madness of the King. Surely that was not his fault, though I can see how it would have precluded his ongoing reign and destabilized the kingdom to have a boy as ruler. I think York disingenuous for impugning Lancaster based on suspicion of a foreign queen-regent, the fear of her too powerful behind the throne, when Cecily of York raised two kings and two earls. Do you know they called her the ‘Rose of Raby?’ I always liked that,” Mary said decisively.

“I prefer York. I always felt Richard the III was, well, unfairly maligned for his deformity because he put me in mind of my brother, Jimmy. He has a bad foot and a limp and I’ve seen how people treat him, so quick to see him as weak or disloyal to our Cause,” Emma said. “Then too, York is so romantic, Edward and Elizabeth Woodville marrying in secret, his true love for her overwhelming all objections of low birth. And then, the two sad little princes, I can never stop wondering what happened to them,” Emma replied with some spirit. 

Jed could honestly say he could not have anticipated finding the Head Nurse and the Special Confederate Nurse deep in discussion over the War of the Roses, seeking a respite from the blood and stink of the hospital in gentle disputation over who had the right of it, York or Lancaster. That war must seem so idyllic in comparison to them, with its fluttering standards embroidered with flaming suns, heraldic badges, the veils of the queens and princesses floating behind them, gowned in samite, cloth-of-gold. He suspected war was war, that the Rose of Raby had seen her share of butchery. Blood soaked into earth the same way the world over. Still, he could not resist calling over “I am Tudor’s man! Elizabeth Regina, semper eadem!”

Mary he saw caught his meaning, knew her Latin as well as her English history; she saw too how he enjoyed their truce, enjoyed the too-rare exercise of their women’s minds. She gave a sunny smile, his student and teacher alike. Emma grasped what was beneath better, his praise of them both but also how he’d found a way to tell Mary how singular she was, how precious, how she reigned over him. Emma gave a nod of recognition, too brief for Mary to see, but not too quick for Jed, who shared her upbringing. They turned then, back to their work, the bandages that were endless and yet never enough, that bound them to the current insurrection.

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my offering for "war" as a prompt. I liked the idea of two bright women getting to talk about something intellectual that would also cast some light on their personalities and of course, Jed gets to hear them and contribute. I am a big fan of the Mary & Emma friendship (obviously). My source on the history is Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendor, which is an epic historical novel about the War of the Roses; also, Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time (though less so). Elizabeth I's motto "semper eadem" means "always the same." If you are inclined towards historical fiction, the Penman and Tey novels are great and Penman's Welsh series is arguably her best.


End file.
